Interesting question?

'Can we ask question about something unknown to us?'

This friday night I was in office winding up my last few activities for the weekend and looking forward for the long durga puja weekend. It was then one of my friends popped up on the messenger. We were having a nice chat about my job and other miscellaneous topics.

In all that I asked him to tell about something about himself which I didn’t know. And he asked me to anything. And I replied back 'how can I ask about something which I don’t know?'. And this is the conversation that followed ...

my friend: Hmm, logical logic..
my friend: But that's exactly why the concept of questions came into being, rit?
me: no
my friend: no?
my friend: Enlighten me, then
me: u ask question when you have doubt about something known to you but you dont understand it fully
me: u can nvr ask question on a thing unknow to you O:-)
my friend: Nope, not 'never'.. How does a child discover & learn things, when he's growing up then??
me: he is told about things
me: give it a thought u can never ever ask questions on thing which you dont know
my friend: Yes, you do have a very valid point, I was just adding on to it, as in, in most cases, questions are about doubts, but often, people do ask something like "What is X?" And therefore, counting in those cases, it cannont be said 'never'...
me: see when u ask "what is X?" ... it means you know that there is something "X" ... but not sure what it is ... so you are asking
me: but if you dont know that there is something "X" ... your question will be just "What is ...?"
me: and thats not a question ;)
my friend: Hmm, we are on slightly different platforms.. You are talking in an absolute sense, and I not quite so.. Remember Ayn Rand's philosophy.. There are no Absolutes. Even Lord Eienstien vouches for this!
me: i always like to bring out the other aspect
me: i love doing it
me: thanks to you i had real fun last half an hour
me: all your points are totally valid
me: i too agree with them ;)
my friend: Even, I love doing the same!
my friend: And hence, we are finally on the same platform!

Isn’t it an interesting piece of conversation, at least we found it entertaining. As my friend summarized it latter ...

"Lovely! Nothing better than an intellectually invigorating discussion about something that is totally nonsensical, and is often the crap of the mind!"